We hope you have been enjoying this long weekend and finding some time to rest and relax! September will be a busy month in 5th grade and we are excited about the classroom activities and school wide programs coming up. Last Thursday, your students took the Reading portion of the Fall NWEA test. These tests measure student growth and provide valuable insight for us as we begin implementing the ELA curriculum. On Thursday of this week, students will take the Math NWEA test, which will be used for implementing our math curriculum. If you have any questions about these tests, please let us know.
In ELA, all students have chosen a book to read independently, and we have been writing about our reading in our Reading Journals every day. These journals will be collected periodically so we can stay up to date with the reading your student has been doing. Please remind your child that it is important they write a journal entry for every day we have ELA. Should they be absent, the writing should be made up. Entries should be at least 5-7 sentences and will be graded and recorded in PowerSchool. We have also been working on writing with proper paragraph structure and mechanics. This week we will move on to citing evidence from texts as we read.
In social studies, we have been studying the causes and effects of Migration. Each student was assigned a Migration book and we have begun to use text features and note-taking strategies to navigate the non-fiction text. Notes on “Case Study One” are due on Wednesday and notes on “Case Study Two” will be due on Friday. The books are kept at school due to a limited number of copies, however, we have made a scanned copy of each book available for your students on Google Classroom.
Many students have asked about purchasing cases for their Chromebook. If you would like to do that, we are using the Chromebook 3 and the screen size is 11.6 inches.
Although all 5th grade students should be filling out their assignment notebooks each day, we have created this homework document in the event your student needs clarification. This document will be completed as close to the end of the school day as possible by the 5th grade teachers and instructional assistants. If you find that your student’s assignment notebook routinely does not match what is recorded on the homework doc, please let us know. We would be happy to intervene to ensure your student is working on personal organization skills.
And finally, please note that PCCS will be participating in Attendance Week during the week of 9/9-9/13. We will have several spirit days during that week. Please make every effort to ensure your student is in attendance on those days. Thank you!!